


Cadmium City, The Miscellaneous Archive

by jacksgreysays (jacksgreyson)



Series: Original Work [4]
Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper, Original Work
Genre: Angels, Crimes & Criminals, Demons, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Magic, Multi, Superheroes, Time Travel, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2018-11-21 20:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 40
Words: 18,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11365425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksgreyson/pseuds/jacksgreysays
Summary: (The collection of loosely related snippets and ficlets set in the fictional Cadmium City. Originally posted on tumblr.)





	1. Untitled (2015-01-20)

Joy is tired, angry, and bleeding. She is missing one of her shoes, has torn both legs of her pants, and will need to get a haircut to even out the still smoking mess on her head. But she trudges back to the apartment triumphantly, because she did it.

She killed the vampire that bit her brother. She even beat the one month deadline by a week.

“Simon,” She greets him, after a quick stop to dunk her head under the kitchen sink. Might as well try to save as much as she can, “Simon, I did it.”

For obvious reasons, the past three weeks have not been kind to her brother. To begin with, he had always been somewhat sickly–asthma, allergies, liable to catch four different strains of the flu–but the whole vampire infection being what it is, basically his body just started to systematically shut down. And she had been forced to confine him to their apartment.

“Simon?” Her call nearly echoes in their tiny, empty apartment. His bedroom window is open, the screen punched through from the inside.

“Oh god, no.” But even as her mind denies it, her hand is already pulling out her phone and calling the one person who may be able to fix this.

…

“You were too late,” The doctor intones, expression as irritatingly blank as always.

“No, I had one month to kill it.” Joy bites back, fists shaking in her pockets.

“If you had come to me sooner–”

“It was your team that fucked up, why would I trust you with something this important?”

“–I would have been able to tell you that you mistranslated. You didn’t have one  **month** , you had one  **moon**. Specifically, you had until the full moon.” Ellen’s face is still placid, but even she’s not so unaffected as to deny the sorrow seeping into her voice. The doctor had been fond of Simon, in her own way, and even his sister for all that the feeling wasn’t mutual.

“But that was…” Joy breathed out, horrified and unable to finish.

“Eleven days ago,”


	2. Untitled (2015-05-03)

The second time Joy meets Alvin, she can’t decide whether or not it’s a terrible nightmare or an elaborate ruse. Considering he thinks it’s the first time they’ve met, when in fact the first time they met he was trying to arrest her for stealing over twenty thousand dollars worth of jewelry while they were both using their alter egos, her reservation is valid. Silverfang and his vigilante friends failed in catching Jaguar that night, but that doesn’t mean Joy Guerrero has necessarily gotten off scott free.

Fortunately and yet, somehow simultaneously, unfortunately, her younger brother really is dating Alvin Chand. Which means that although she isn’t going to be arrested belatedly for her crimes, her personal and professional lives are going to intersect in rather uncomfortable ways.

“Joy,” Simon says, smiling, unaware of the inner turmoil he is causing in his older sister, “This is my boyfriend, Alvin.” Which is obvious, from the way their arms are threaded together like out of a period drama.

Alvin looks at her nervously, the same way any teenaged boy meeting his boyfriend’s family for the first time would look. Not like a vigilante trying to suss out if said family is a wanted burglar.

“It’s nice to meet you, Alvin,” She lies through her teeth, extending a hand for him to shake. And if her grip is particularly tight, then it’s just an older sister’s prerogative. She raised Simon herself, she’s allowed to be protective.

“Likewise,” Alvin responds, wincing slightly. More from a message received than from actual pain–Silverfang has super strength, Jaguar does not.

“Joy!” Simon scolds, knowing her too well, though secretly pleased enough not to do much else, “Let’s sit already,” he continues, leading the two of them to one of four table in the unimaginatively, but aptly, named Baker & Son’s Bakery and Cafe.

Mostly, the Guerrero siblings just call it the Bakery. In part, because the entire name is ridiculously redundant sounding, but also because the two of them have lived in one of the apartments in the upper floors since they were children. The Bakers are practically family.

As soon as they all sit, Aaron, the latest generation of Baker, eagerly makes his way over to them with a pad of paper and a bright purple crayon. He is four years old and his tiny apron has little cartoons of smiling cats. As it should, since Joy was the one to buy it for him as a birthday gift.

“Ms. Joy,” He beams up at her, delight obvious on his adorable face. His greeting for Simon is only slightly less bright, “Mr. Simon,” And his smile drops completely when he eyes at the third member of their party suspiciously, “Who are you?” Aaron pouts, though he’s likely aiming for a scowl.

Aaron’s father, observing from behind the counter, stifles a laugh.

“This is Alvin, my boyfriend,” Simon explains, which prompts said boyfriend to wave slightly with a slightly sheepish smile.

Aaron looks extremely skeptical, but quickly dismisses him to gaze adoringly at Joy instead.

“Are you our waiter today?” Joy asks, extremely amused by this entire exchange.

“Yes!” He chirps, pride evident on his cubbish face, “Daddy says I’m a good em-ploy-ee,” sounding out each syllable carefully.

“I’m sure you’re a big help,” She assures, Simon and even Alvin, grudgingly, making noises of agreements. Aaron’s smile really could not get any wider.

“I think I’ll have one hot chocolate and a… hm, what’s your favorite kind of muffin, Aaron?”

“Blueberry!”

“Then I’ll have one of those,” Joy responds, smile curling as Aaron’s purple crayon draws random scribbles on the notepad. Behind him, his father waves a hand in acknowledgement of the order.

“Ooh, me too. Except instead of a muffin I’d like two chocolate chip cookies, please.” Simon adds, before nudging his boyfriend’s shoulder, “What about you Alvin?”


	3. Untitled (2015-06-11)

“There, perfect!” Jun cheers as he finishes styling her hair. He rests his hands lightly on her shoulders and in the mirror she can see how pleased he is with his work, his smile matching her own.

Hair artfully arranged over the tips of her ears into a low bun at the nape of her neck, a layer of makeup transforming her normal blue-grey pallor into cream and tan, and contact lenses to modify the shape of her pupils, she looks… human.

“I’m so impressed with myself right now,” Jun crows, packing away his supplies into his cosmetics bag, “You look great,” he continues, as much a compliment for himself as for her.

“Thank you, Jun,” She says, her gloved hand–it’s already November, so it’s not too out there–touching the space a centimeter above her cheek, so as not to smudge the makeup.

“Hey,” she meets his eyes in the mirror, he looks serious. Happy, still, but controlled, “You’re welcome, okay? Any time you want me to do this, I will totally spend the hour and a half to do this. I got your back.”

They spend a moment beaming at each other before he continues, “Now, are you ready to explore the fascinating world of Cadmium City during the daytime? Because, let me tell you, there’s a bakery that always closes before sunset that is fantastic and you have been missing out!”


	4. Untitled (2015-06-24) - NSFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ficlet is NSFW

“Those assholes are fucking useless!” Apex yells, punching one invulnerable fist straight through an inch of steel into the inner workings of the latest swarm of evil robots and pulling out several still sparking wires.

One down, only about two hundred more to go.

Behind him, one robot readies its blade arm (fucking swords for arms, why?) only to be toppled to the ground by a massive canine. Its head is then ripped off by said canine’s jaws, leaving the body inert. Between one blink and the next, the canine turns into a crouched human who scowls up at Apex in commiseration.

“They lost Griever,” Silverfang growls, jaw and teeth still distorted from his rapid transformation, “I told them to keep track of him.”

“Useless!” Apex repeats, bodily flinging one robot into a clustered group of four that may have been trying to fuse into one larger, deadlier robot (what the fuck, seriously). “Go find him, before he absorbs too much and ends up hurting himself. His power doesn’t do shit against machines. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Silverfang grunts before bounding away, turning from human to wolf between one step and the next.

In between the screeching clash of metal, the slowly petering out screams of civilians, and his own pounding heartbeat, Apex can hear the sounds of conversation between their piece of shit allies and the villain of the week. Are they–? Those tools are trying to get through to him emotionally. All five of them, apparently, at the same time.

“You are fucking kidding me,” he bites out between grit teeth, sacrificing a scratch to the arm to avoid a stab in the leg. It heals slowly, sluggishly oozing blood, “Are these rust fuckers’ goddamn sword arms coated in poison?”

This is the worst.

“We are never working with this team again.”


	5. Untitled (2015-06-26)

“I am not bleeding, bruised, or in any way concussed currently!” Brian cheers, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, arms flung out and nearly punching Curtis in the eye.

“Congratulations,” Alvin says, not even at all sarcastically. It’s practically a miracle if Brian can get through a day without taking on someone’s pain. Most days they’re lucky and he has an opportunity to pass some of it on, but he still ends up keeping some.

“My little boy’s all grown up. Walking around on his own two feet, not hurting himself.” Curtis mocks, faking a sob; but he lets Brian smack him with a pillow, so all is forgiven.

“We can’t all be invulnerable,” Brian shoots back.

“We should get cake,” Alvin suggest, which is somewhat disjointed from the conversation, but not a total non sequitur, so his teammates let it slide.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Brian demurs, confused yet also totally on board for cake. Any dessert, really. Well, all food, really; teenage boy plus biological superpower equals ludicrous metabolism.

Curtis, squinting suspiciously in Alvin’s direction, smacks a fist against his open palm. Then his expression rearranges itself into an exaggerated leer, waggling eyebrows and all, “Is Simon on shift at the Baker Bakery today?”

Alvin blushes, a creeping spill of red across his face. Curtis laughs.

“Dude, don’t play me like that,” Brian chides, kicking at Alvin’s ankle but only just barely grazing it, “If you want a wingman you just have to ask. Don’t risk my twenty four hour streak of perfect health for a lie-cake. A lake. A kie?”

“Yeah,” Curtis agrees through his chuckles before it peters out, “Don’t tease, man. You can’t lie about cake.”

“It wasn’t a lie!” Alvin protests, though suitably shamed.

“And anyway,” Curtis continues, unrelenting, “Isn’t his older sister super protective?”

“I’m pretty sure she hates you,” Brian adds, completely unhelpfully.

“She hasn’t even met me yet,” Alvin grumbles, but nods because he’s pretty sure Joy Guerrero hates everyone in general but Alvin specifically.

He has no idea why.


	6. Untitled (2015-07-13)

“Don’t be a stranger,” the man says, affable grin on his face. She lets his hand go and smiles back at him, watching as he walks away into the light.

The man has not been able to walk by himself for six months.

The man has been pronounced dead as of 4:37 this morning.

Her vision distorts as it usually does, back to the normal shades of gray that she sees the world. She is told that it’s usually the opposite for most psychopomps–at least the ones that bother with vision–but for her, the dead and the place they go to has always seemed more vibrant, more real than the monotony of everyday life.

She is in the custodian’s closet on the same floor as the man’s room, just down the hall. Crinkling her nose at the stench of cleaning supplies and soiled laundry, she rises from her prone position seated on an overturned bucket, and leaves the hospital.

The nurses don’t see her, or rather, don’t notice, just another faceless scrub-wearing member of their ranks shuffling along the graveyard shift. She appears frequently enough that the staff know her face, if not quite her purpose and definitely not her name. She will be back, eventually.

She has school in three hours.


	7. Untitled (2015-07-15)

“You really want to try playing office politics against her? There’s no point. Either you’re insignificant or she’ll obliterate you. That’s it. There’s no standing your ground if you’re on different levels.”

-

"Try again,” Tally says, heels kicking into the wall she sits atop. Her small wings flutter behind her in syncopation.

Edwin, Winnie as he has the misfortune to be called by his two friends, huffs in frustration but does as she says, calling for that small glow within him.

Becka, as coolly apathetic as usual, just watches as he flubs the spell once more.

“You’re never going to get assigned if you can’t get this,” Tally chides, worriedly. She’s due to start her commission in a month–guardian over a human who has the unfortunate tendency to steal from the wrong person. Becka, likewise, is already slated for duty in the matchmaker division.

If Winnie doesn’t finish the certification requirements soon, he’ll either have to repeat the final year or get one of the boring Etherlands jobs.

“I know,” Winnie grits out, wings and shoulders both hunched up near his ears.

“Again,” this time Becka demanding, flapping her wings once twice thrice to ease her descent from beside Tally on the wall, “you’re holding on for too long here,” she points at his sternum where the core of his energy rests, then trails her fingers up his throat, along his face, to rest on his forehead, “and over thinking it.”

Catching on to what she’s suggesting, Tally adds, “Prepare the energy and just let the spell do it’s work.”

-

They don’t have long for this world. A week at most, depending on how much mischief they can scrounge up and how much power they use up to do so. They don’t have much to begin with, even less when it needs to be split between the three of them.

A week.

Unless they can find someone to enter a contract.

That’s pretty difficult–most wizards and witches, as rare as they are, don’t bother with the low level demons. Much less three.

But they do honestly work better as a trio. Not that they’re in the business of honesty.

Jenny laughs at the thought. A Lie demon, so desperate as to consider the truth.

Oh, but she’s the best out of the three of them to find a contract holder. Merely a division of labor.

While Travis sows some chaos, Nick will be the one to keep the angels of their trails.

One week.

A lot can happen in one week.

Say, finding a pair of potential contract holders, thwarting a much stronger demon’s plans, and falling in love with an angel.

Game start.


	8. Word Prompts (F9): Famous

“I will find you,” he hissed, hand encircled around Victoria’s wrist in a bruising grip.

His breath smelled of mint and she wondered if, perhaps, it would have been better if she could smell alcohol; if the possibility of blaming his behavior on drunkenness would have been preferable.

But she had no time for what ifs, had little patience for indulging his tantrum.

“Not likely,” she shot back, yanking her arm away.

She walked away from him; his body curled up on the floor via a well-placed kick

—

As Venus, her life was simple. Wake up, check her email, receive assignment, find the target, kill the target, go to sleep.

Simple did not mean easy. Or normal.

But it was still her life. One that she had chosen, one that she had excelled at, and one that gave her satisfaction.

Until the entire Falcone family had been obliterated in the span of three days.

All of them–from the patriarch to the lieutenants to every little runner on the street–but one.

“Shh, little one, I’ll keep you safe,” the woman once named Victoria, murmured to the young child trembling from shock on her sofa beneath three of her spare blankets.

Henry Falcone, the youngest blood member of the Falcone family, slated to inherit control of a major chunk of all organized crime in the nation.

Including her services.

She couldn’t be Venus anymore, that’s not what he needed.

—

Vivian hadn’t planned to fall in love–but who plans to? If she had, she certainly wouldn’t have chosen Curtis Ives of all people.

“Tell me a secret,” she said during one of their date nights–Henry and Curtis’ son, Caleb, asleep upstairs. The kids had a sleepover, and she supposed the adults had one as well.

“Tell me a secret,” she had said, warm and relaxed from good food and wine and company, “Something you’ve never told anyone else,” she continued.

She hadn’t expected much from it, maybe some silly childhood story. But she should have known he would make it something real. Something serious.

He was halfway in love with her, with Vivian that is, this identity that she had created to protect a little boy from his would-be murderer. Curtis would have done a lot more for her than tell her a secret.

If she had known what the secret was before, she would have never asked.


	9. (2015-11-04) ficlet

“You’re kidding,” Alvin says flatly, eyes narrowed.

The doctor, in response, lifts one eyebrow. Even though it’s been years–over a decade–it still triggers an instinctive fear reaction in Alvin. He freezes, and she smiles, a slow creeping thing like a beast curling its lip back.

He lifts his chin. In humans, that would be a gesture of defiance, but in beasts…

“No, I’m not kidding,” the doctor finally answers, almost smug in her victory.

Alvin looks back down at the operating table, and ignores the persistent feelings of deja vu, of being a teenager lined up beside his teammates, listening to the doctor explain the latest mission. Before, there were pictures and files about the villain of the week. Now there are only two photos; the one on the left features a sullen-faced boy, the one on the right shows a somehow equally sullen looking lion cub.

“Cats and dogs, doctor!” he protests, futilely.

She is clearly unimpressed, “Hari isn’t some house cat, and you’re not a dog. Come now, Silverfang, what are you afraid of?”

The problem is, Alvin actually is a licensed foster parent. He needed to be in order to prove himself a suitable guardian for his niece and nephew.

It was a hassle to do–given the political climate a decade ago and the fact that he was, is, a homosexual bachelor–and so he makes sure to keep it up-to-date even though Diana and Jericho are both legal adults and have no need for him to do so.

Alvin didn’t really think it would be used against him, “Fine,” he huffs, “I’ll meet him.”


	10. (2015-12-06) ficlet

“One day, you will find yourself lost and terribly alone,” she says, tone flat and empty.

The man kneeling before her looks his fill, eyes going dry from his staring. His hands shake, he presses them against his legs to still them.

“On that day, you will call for me, and I will come,” she continues, and though her voice stays the same, her leather jacket creaks from the motion of her fists in her pockets, “And we will renegotiate then,” she finishes, before turning and walking away.

The man does not call out after her, does not beg her to stop and explain, does not say anything.

He stays kneeling, even an hour after she’s already gone.

It will be fifteen years the next time he sees her, and she has not aged at all.

—

“Go away, Az” she says, one irritation away from justified manslaughter. Normally, she is an epitome of calm, but right now she feels like a disgusting stereotype of a hot-tempered redheaded woman.

“I need a favor,” Az says, completely ignoring her words and sidling his way around her and into her office.

“I don’t owe you anything,” she responds, and already she has lost by engaging with him. Well, at least he’s not touching anything.

He looks and smells like he crawled out of a bar–alcohol and cigarettes and human sweat, maybe even some piss–so keeping his hands to himself is the least he can do.

“I need you to look after your niece for a while,” he says, unapologetic, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“I don’t have any siblings.”

“And yet,” he shoots back with a smile, “your daughter has a cousin.”

“Hell, which of you assholes had a kid and what happened to the poor sucker who was the mother?” She asks, shock and curiosity overcoming her annoyance.

Az grins wider, “Me, of course. And old age happened to her–you know how humans are,” he says with a nearly careless shrug, but she spots the way his smile trembles at the edges. 

“They barely last a century.”


	11. Word Prompts (G22): Grasping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> closely related to my other archive of miscellaneous ficlets part of the Counterclockwise 'verse, especially this [one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11365782/chapters/25520046)

I was five the first time I met a superhero, though I didn’t know it then. I had been grocery shopping with my grandpa–more like, clinging to the cart so as not to get separated from my grandpa as he went grocery shopping–and something caught my eye. I don’t even remember what it was now–probably something silly, like a fallen penny or maybe the colorful packaging of some candy.

Regardless of what it was, I remember that I had let go of the cart. Just for a second, it felt; I had looked away from my grandpa just for a second. And yet, when I turned to look back: he was gone.

I panicked, unsurprisingly. Felt a sudden bite of abandonment, and the sharp sting of betrayal. My grandpa had left me!

Of course, now that I am older, I realize he had just moved the cart around the corner of the aisle. No doubt, if I had walked a few steps, I would have spotted him immediately. But at that time, I was young and afraid and out of my depths.

I didn’t cry–only because I had always been a quiet child–but I did clutch at my shirt in confusion, unsure how to face the world all on my lonesome.

But, as this anecdote goes, I was not alone. A very tall man–or at least, he seemed very tall at the time, given my own childhood size–in the grocery store’s green uniform apron knelt down in front of me, putting himself at my eye level.

“Hello, there, miss” he said to me, voice soft and soothing, “Are you okay? Is there anything I can help you with?”

And I must have laughed, a little watery and tremulous, but a laugh nonetheless. Because here was this adult talking to me the same way adults talked to my grandparents, like I was an adult, too.

“My name is Brian,” he added, pointing at the name tag pinned to his apron.

“Hi, Brian,” I whispered back, “I’m Leanne.”

“I see your cart has misplaced itself, Miss Leanne. Would you like help in finding it?” He asked, not missing a beat.

I nodded, leading him to unfolding himself back onto his feet.

“And my grandpa,” I added, because I decided I could forgive his transgression if it had been an accident, “He’s old; I have to watch out for him,” I continued, because my grandma had said so.

Brian nodded, as if what I said had been perfectly legitimate.

It only took a few steps to round the corner where the cart and my grandpa–only just realizing I was not holding on to it–were. The ordeal was over in less than five minutes, and yet…

I remember he didn’t reach a hand out to me, but he did hold out one of his apron strings for me to grab–even though he had to undo the knot in order for me to reach it. At the time, I hadn’t thought it was strange. Truly, if that were the last of it, I wouldn’t have recalled that little detail.

But, of course, that was not the last of it. Unfortunately, that was the last time I met Brian because, not two weeks after that incident, the vigilante Griever was killed in action.


	12. (2016-04-04) ficlet

On the day of her brother’s wedding, Joy falls in love.

It is the second worst thing to happen to the Guerrero family.

Normally, Simon would be very supportive of his older sister having any positive emotions for anyone other than himself and maybe their neighbors the Bakers who ply his sister with free sugar and caffeine on a near daily basis. Frankly, it’s not even the fact that it’s his wedding that is the problem–Simon is not so selfish that he demands the entire day be about him and his fiancé/husband–it’s the who that is the problem.

Because it’s one thing for Simon to keep secrets from his vigilante husband about the real identity of the criminal Jaguar. It’s another thing entirely to not tell his sister that she’s fallen in love with a different vigilante Apex. Who himself is engaged to yet another vigilante Firefly.

This can not end well for his sister.


	13. Word Prompts (R12): Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> related to Chapter 14

“It’s interesting to see what people think they'e entitled to,” she says, that strange lilt to her voice that has been scratching away at his brain since day one, “It’s not exactly their vulnerabilities, but it makes them just as easy to manipulate.” She smiles, then, a predator baring teeth which is such an obvious comparison that somehow he realizes what the problem is.

“You’re not Irish at all,” he accuses.

Her smile becomes genuinely amused, and when she speaks her accent rounds out, slows down, becomes thick and syrupy sweet like molasses, “I’m not the real Red, either.”

Reeling, he tries to find his bearings, tries to take in more of her to see what he had previously missed. Her hair, her clothes, any clue that he should have spotted much earlier that says ‘this isn’t the criminal mastermind you’re looking for’. But before he can complete a thought, a sharp blow to the back of his head sends him toppling to the ground.

He sees two matching pairs of shoes, two matching faces–but different clothes, different hair.

“Don’t worry,” the woman he thought was Red says, “she’s not Red either.”

—

The thing is, no one really knows who Red is besides, probably, Red and their small handful of trusted lieutenants. Authorities don’t even know Red’s gender, age, ethnicity. Admittedly, the Irish heritage was a reach–the lone survivor of the 22nd Precinct’s bombing remembering an accent on the other side of that disastrous phone call–but it was deemed significant enough to be even a possibility.

When he comes to, head aching, wrists and ankles tied to a chair, there are five unimpressed people standing in front of him and he is pretty sure none of them are Red. Well, two of them have self-confirmed as not being Red. For all he knows it’s a double-bluff.

“Detective Camilo,” one of them says, the woman he already spoke to, the others remaining silent. Maybe to keep their voices secret, though if they were worried about they also wouldn’t have shown him their faces.

This doesn’t bode well for him getting out alive.

“We understand you have a younger sister, is this true?” the woman asks, and Gavin tries to keep his pokerface, tries not to react to the obvious goading, but his hands clench into fists, the ropes bite into his skin at the way he tries to surge against his bindings.

“Tori is such a smart girl, such a big contributor to the community. I heard she’s studying to be a detective just like her big brother,” the woman continues, and Gavin can’t help himself.

“You stay away from her! Don’t you dare touch her!”

“Relax, Detective,” a different voice rings out, not one of the five in front of him, but someone behind him. Someone with an Irish accent, someone whose voice is  suddenly so familiar that he knows without seeing that this was the person on the other end of that phone.

Red.

“No one’s going to hurt your baby sister,” the voice says, the accent flowing, completely at ease, yet somehow ratcheting up his fear more than talk of Tori did.

“What do you want?” He rasps out, sweat beginning to dampen his hairline.

“Nothing yet, Detective,” Red says, and a pat on Gavin’s shoulder causes him to flinch, “Actually I’ve something for your new precinct; consider it a gift.”

Two of the silent men in front of him step away from the crate they had been leaning on, and using crowbars, pry open the front.

Inside is a body. Alive, thankfully, but bound worse than he is–blindfolded and gagged on top of that. The main suspect for one of his other cases, a double homicide in his new precinct.

“Don’t go asking him questions about me, Detective,” Red says, with one final pat on his shoulder, “he doesn’t know what I look like, either.” At some signal, the five lieutenants move away, all of them vacating the warehouse, leaving Gavin and a probable murderer tied up.


	14. Word Prompts (X1): X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> related to Chapter 13

At three in the morning, Emily climbs through his bedroom window and drips on his carpet shamelessly. A few seconds later her sister does the same, but Quinn at least looks a little bit sheepish.

They remain silent, as if not to bother him, even though they know he’s already awake.

He sighs, “I’ll get some towels,” he decides before dragging himself out of bed towards the linen closet in the hallway.

“Thank you,” Quinn’s voice follows after him and, after a second and no doubt an elbow to the ribs, Emily voices a grudging, “Thanks.”

On his way to the linen closet, he knocks on the apartment’s other bedroom door. “The twins are here, and they’re dripping on my carpet,” he complains. He doesn’t hear a response, but he knows Maroon is awake and heard him. She’ll be by to ask for their report.

Back in his own bedroom, he tosses the twins a towel each and rummages through his drawers for some dry clothes they can change into. By the time he decides he wouldn’t mind losing his old charity marathon shirts and some basketball shorts to the terror twins, Maroon has slipped into his room with the first aid kit and has begun carefully inspecting them for injuries.

“Nothing too bad,” Emily says, “No need for all this fuss,” though the way she leans into Maroon’s hand tells another story.

Quinn, having no desire to save face, blandly presents her forearm. There is a giant angry burn surrounded by painful looking blisters.

“What happened?” Maroon asks, beginning to treat the wound with ointment and bandages.

“Ah, well, you know…” Emily demurs, shrugging with a false nonchalance, “Thunderbolt.”

Quinn’s lips purse, partially because of her arm, mostly because of the memory. He can sort of understand: if his childhood friend were on the opposite side of the law and they had to fight each other, he’d be conflicted, too. Or… upset? Pissed off?

He’s not sure, Quinn’s expressions are hard to read.

“Stay here for the night,” Maroon directs.

“Or what’s left of it,” he interjects, giving each twin a bundle of clothes. They change immediately, as if he and Maroon weren’t right in front of them.

“Take my bed,” Maroon nods in the direction of her room, “I’ll share with Xander.”


	15. Spectra ficlet (2016-05-03)

On a clear moonlit night, the kind of night in which their personalities click together rather than their usual clash, they are soft and sweet to each other in a way they seldom have been or ever will be. Irina’s bed is the bigger and better option–more accustomed to the finer things in life–the sheets nearly as smooth as kisses on skin.

“You dress like a pirate,” she says, trailing her finger down a spine decorated equally in freckles and bruises. At such a light touch, Frances’ skin turns to goosebumps, the small downy hairs prickling ineffectively.

“And you dress like a queen,” the other girl laughs, tickled by the touch and the thought.

“Is that meant to be an insult?” Irina asks, lightly scraping the backs of her fingernails in a reverse path.

“No,” Frances says, turning over, unashamed of her lack of shirt; even if she were, it would be quite belated. And it’s not like Irina is wearing a shirt, either. "Was yours?“ she continues, the slightest hint of a bite to her words, prepared but not seeking the argument which could so quickly form.

Irina pauses, allows herself to ponder. She’d prefer this moment not to sour, either, "No,” she admits, perfectly honest for once, before leaning forward and pressing their lips together. God forbid any other truths spill out of her mouth.

—

The problem with Frances is that she’s infuriating. Unrefined and loud and heedless of her own safety much less proper etiquette. They shouldn’t work together as well as they do, but despite all their arguing that’s just how it is.

Irina wouldn’t trade it for anything.

—

“Frances and Yasmine are back, Boss,” Tanj says, even though Irina has previously told her not to call her such on multiple occasions.

Yet another correction is on the tip of her tongue–they’re a team, not a mob–before the words register. “Where are they?” she asks, hoping she doesn’t sound as eager and worried as she feels. The mission she sent Frances and Yasmine on was only supposed to take three days, four at most, yet a week had passed without any word from either of them.

From the look on Tanj’s face, Irina has failed to control her tone, “The infirmary,” she says. Obviously, she doesn’t add.

Her worry condenses into dread. “Excuse me,” she barely blurts out, before stepping around Tanj and hurriedly walking towards the infirmary.

She doesn’t reprimand Tanj’s “sure thing, Boss,” that drifts after her.

When she finally gets to the infirmary and lands eyes on Frances–and Yasmine who, except her hair, looks as unruffled and composed as normal–she can feel the weight in her chest grow lighter. It is only a small injury, Yasmine dutifully stitching up a cut on Frances’ upper arm, far from the worst she’s ever seen Frances receive and laugh off.

But it is a short-lived relief because Frances does not do so this time.

She sits, quietly, tense and pale, brow furrowed and staring at nothing. She doesn’t even make a remark on Irina’s presence which is something that she always pokes fun at, sniping about the team’s high and mighty leader beginning to care for her poor, lowly servants.

“What happened?” Irina asks, aiming the question at Frances, but Yasmine is the one to respond:

“We ran into some complications,” Yasmine says mildly, winding a clean bandage round and round Frances’ arm. Who remains unnervingly silent, even now.

“Three days worth of complications?” She spits out like an accusation, scrambling to regain her calm, her objectivity.

“It’s not like we decided to play hooky,” Yasmine bites back, also reproachful, nearly offended at the implication that she might be even the slightest bit unprofessional. And it’s not like Frances would do such a thing, either. For all her jokes and recklessness, she’d never do anything that would endanger the mission.

Irina doesn’t apologize, but she consciously gentles her tone when she prompts, “Complications?”

Finally, Frances speaks but it’s with such a hollow expression on her face, her words bearing such ill news, that Irina almost wishes she hadn’t said anything at all. “We ran into some members of the Flock.”

—

As far as Irina and, really, any outsider knows, the group referred to as the Flock is an elite branch of the Kelley crime family that make strategic strikes against the family’s enemies whether that be through theft, blackmail, arson, kidnapping, or murder. No one actually knows how many members the Flock has because one of them is a confirmed metahuman–shapeshifter–and can look like anyone at any time.

Not in the way Tanj can, who despite her default appearance is a completely baseline human. Tanj is just a fantastic actress with an uncanny control over her body language and voice–though the makeup skills and near endless wardrobe doesn’t hurt either–capable of seeming like a completely different person between one breath and the next. No, the Flock has a shapeshifter who can actually transform themself into a specific other person.

Irina has had nightmares about such a thing, turning around and seeing one of her team’s face melting away into a stranger’s. Thankfully, those are sparing, the kind of fleeting thoughts limited to her overactive subconscious.

But Frances? She seems to be actively afraid of the Flock. And Irina doesn’t know why.

—

All of them have their secrets, Irina perhaps more so than the others–although not actually knowing the others’ secrets makes that a guess more than anything concrete–and she’s been firm on the matter of everyone being entitled to keep them.

She created this team not looking for friends, only wanting up and coming stars in each field that wouldn’t mind taking orders from a young woman–unsurprisingly, that turned out to be other young women, but she’s hardly put out by such a thing–and yet, now? She wouldn’t hesitate to call any of them her friends.

And, maybe, Frances as something more.

She can’t ask for Frances’ secrets without being willing to offer her own, but something in her fails to let go. It’s hypocritical, but she wants to know about Frances’ past so much that she aches with it. And not even just why the other girl is so afraid of the Flock, though that would be welcome, too.

No, Irina also wants to know the story behind every scar, wants to know what her favorite childhood memory is. Why she dresses like a pirate, and what happened to her family. If she’s ever been in love before.

If she’s in love now.

—

Irina never believed in love. It was an impossible idea, steeped with too much romanticism and not enough practicality. Even if such a thing did exist, surely it was for the feeble minded and naive.

Love was a curse that happened to other people.


	16. The Adventures of Jack and Ness ficlet (2016-05-11)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Adventures of Jack and Ness are unrelated stories revolving around best friends in vastly different worlds and situations.
> 
> This time, they're in Cadmium City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> related to Chapters 13 and 14

“It’s just odd is all,” he says to her, voice all low and hesitant like he thinks she’ll attack him for a sudden noise.

“What is?” she murmurs back, letting her fingertips skate across the smooth, metal wall. There has to be a way out. After all, they were thrown in somehow.

On the opposite wall, Jack is doing the same, “That you’d go by a different name than the one your parents gave you.”

And in Ness’ case, she can see his confusion. Other people, those not fond of their parents or their childhood, would be more than happy to shed the name on their birth certificate. Which is an understandable and respectable way of life. But Ness looks back at the past as a place she will always yearn for, no matter the fact that she can never return.

The name her parents gave her is the last she has of them. She hasn’t used it in years.

Ness’ fingertips catch on a seam in the wall, so thin that she can barely dig her nails into it. But barely is just enough, and she rips the panel out, heedlessly tossing it to the floor of their cell with a resounding crash.

Jack, startled, growls but he catches himself mid-shift. His canine snout returns to being a perfectly human face.

In contrast, Ness has let her hands change fully into paws and claws.

“I haven’t been their daughter for a long time.”

—

Neither of them are entirely sure what made them successes out of the thirty experiments in their group. There are a few others who survived the treaments, but none on their level.

It’s not like either of them are genetically predisposed to be metahumans–though that is undoubtedly what they are now.

There’s a doctor who is known for taking in metahumans in need. Maybe she’ll help them.

They never make it to her.

—

Someone finds them first.

—

“Jackal and Lioness,” the woman they once knew as MX18 says while her witch lackey holds them down against the ground invisibly. They are struggling and snarling, only animalistic on the inside, Jack snapping his blunt human teeth and Ness scraping dirt beneath her soft human nails.

Neither of them are in the mood to talk.

That doesn’t stop MX18.

“You didn’t think I’d forgotten about you, did you?”


	17. Spectra ficlet (2016-05-13)

She startles awake, body jerking, arms flailing wildly enough that she accidentally punches the wall next to her. She gasps, lungs desperately heaving, and doesn’t cry even though her knuckles are in absolute pain.

Nothing that requires Yasmine’s sharp eyes and even sharper bedside manner, but maybe she should lay off any fighting. Pass it on to Violette–she enjoys that sort of thing.

A knock comes from the opposite side of the wall. Cathy, no doubt, awake at this late hour and working on her latest program, curious about the noise of their shared wall.

Tanj knocks back with her other hand, a quick staccato that gives the all clear. She taps back a solid one two in acknowledgement and leaves Tanj to the silence.

Tanj almost wishes she hadn’t, but there’s a limit to how much she’s willing to reveal about herself.

Then again, joining this team has already crossed it.

—

The reason why Tanj goes by that is because she has no idea what her real name is. All she knows is that one day she woke up in a warehouse full of outfits and wigs and make up with the knowledge that everything was hers. According to the deed, the warehouse is a storage facility for T&J Productions which would maybe be right except for how, on further inspection, there is no such thing as T&J Productions.

But it’s a start, enough of one to name herself for it, and that’s the best she’ll let herself hope for.

—

Given her changeable nature and blank origin, nothing about Tanj’s life is certain. Which is why when she shrugs to a question, she’s not being cheeky or insolent or disrespectful–she’s being as honest as she possibly can. Irina is the first op leader to understand that, and so when she broaches the idea of a more permanent team, Tanj doesn’t reject the offer.

That being said, she’s surprised at private everyone is. Nothing on her, of course, because if she doesn’t know her own secrets how could anyone else? But still, it’s damn impressive.

Of the team, Irina was the only one she had ever personally worked with before. Though most everyone in the field has contracted work from Cathy, and she has run into Violette a time or two–not on the same job, but thankfully not on conflicting ones, either. She’s not entirely sure she fully trusts the other two:

Yasmine matches the description of someone who she thought was just an urban legend. The bloody kind. And, frankly, given her skills with a scalpel and a syringe, Tanj wouldn’t put it beyond her.

But Frances? She might as well not have existed before this team.

—

Violette shares her suspicions, though her focus is more on Yasmine’s possible hit count than absence of Frances’ background. Which is fair, Tanj can’t expect everyone to know the importance of nothing–one could say she’s a master of it.

But at least Violette is entertaining her worries, Cathy and Irina don’t seem to see the problem. The former because, if it weren’t for her membership on the team, she’d be the closest thing to a neutral entity in the industry. The latter? Well, it’s almost as if she doesn’t want to see the problem.

Her friend and boss is in love with a liability. Tanj can do nothing to stop the inevitable heartbreak.

—

A part of her worries that she is blowing this out of proportion. Maybe Frances really is just that secretive, and surely all of them have done terrible things in the past like Yasmine. Why would she want to break up such a good thing? For all she knows, maybe the best thing that has happened to her.

But having nothing means being suspicious of everything. Especially someone as empty as her.


	18. Word Prompts (C59): Costumes

In a back alley of a side street in a rundown block of a near forgotten neighborhood is a small shop owned by Regina Monarch. Though, of course, no one knows it as such.

The shop’s sign is constantly turned to “CLOSED,” and the lights of the store room are always off; the door remains locked and the bell forever silent. But upstairs, oh, that is a different story.

Because upstairs is where the magic happens.

—

“Get out of my room!”

A pincushion sails through the air and bounces–harmlessly, of course, the points of the needles sheathed safely within–off of Galileo’s face. He catches it before it falls to the floor, reflexes and the instincts making it easy.

Instead of doing as bidden, like a contrary cat, he slinks forward, stepping carefully across the floor until he can rest one hip against Regina’s work table.

“Can I see what you’re working on?” he asks, inanely, for he can already see the fabric beneath her hands and the head of her sewing machine.

“No,” she replies, equally contrary, though it doesn’t amount to much.

Galileo tilts his head, trying to decipher the shape and pattern and color. “Is that for me?”

“No,” she repeats, pulling the fabric across the plate and watching the needle stitch in furious jabs. Once finished, she holds it up–the shape of a bodice in a purple so dark it looks almost black. “This wouldn’t really fit your aesthetic, now would it?”

Galileo’s suit is designed to make him look more masculine–broaden shoulders and emphasize muscles–to differentiate the shape of the mercenary King from the whipcord thin Galileo. Which is not to say that Galileo has never needed to put on a corset for a job.

“Who is it for, then? A customer?” Because Regina Monarch’s shop only really serves one entity, and that is the identity that they created together.

“A gift for our new partner,” she says, before carefully putting down the bodice and pulling up a photo on her tablet.

Galileo stares at the blurry shot of a robbery from earlier today, an out of focus green-haired girl slightly off-center.

“Isn’t she one of the heroes?”

Regina smiles, and musingly says, “Not for long, I think.”


	19. Word Prompts (D30): Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> closely related to [Counterclockwise 'verse](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11365782/chapters/25442715)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> related to Chapter 20

In a blank, empty room, Bastian sits.

His arms bound together, his legs tied to the chair. He waits. The fluorescent lights fading him out to a pale mirage.

On the other side of the observation glass, the team watches him. Most of the team, anyway. One of their number is conspicuously missing.

“Where is she?” Bastian calls out, even though he’s not supposed to be able to sense them through the soundproof walls.

Or maybe he can’t and is just talking to himself.

Either way, it’s unnerving.

“Where is she?” he repeats, louder, beginning to shift in his bindings–slowly, calmly, as if testing the strength of it.

Henry glances at his stepbrother, not quite worried, but seeking confirmation.

“It’ll hold,” Caleb says, “I can’t even get out of those.”

“I can’t fry them, either,” Tetsuki adds, because with the kind of stunts they’ve seen Bastian pull off, that’s not something they can entirely discount.

“Where is she?” Bastian asks again, words stretching out, syllables liquid and lazy and patient.

“Shouldn’t she be here?” Hari asks from the corner of the room he’s staked out for his own, back jammed against the wall. Of the four of them, Bastian has hurt him the most–all of Goldheart’s attacks close range and physical.

“No,” Starling answers, briefly and simply, and the rest of the team falls in line.

Until, suddenly, Bastian’s head tilts to the side, listening to an imaginary noise. His mouth stretches into a smile.

“Leanne!”

The team startles, but Henry always has to be two steps ahead, doesn’t have the luxury of being startled, “Goldheart, Thunderbolt, go out there–if she’s here, take her away. Find out why she’s come, who tipped her off. She should still be at Doctor Kaiza’s now. And send some uniforms in here. Zenith, with me. We’re escorting him back to his cell.”

Hari and Tetsuki move to leave, soldiers following orders; Caleb steps back and to the side instinctively to guard Henry’s flank.

“Leanne!” Bastian calls out again, energized. Eager.

“And make sure they bring a muzzle!” Henry shouts after them, before turning to his stepbrother. In the space between them, he says, ever so quietly, worried and confused, “What is she doing here? She shouldn’t be here.”

Bastian may have hurt Goldheart most often, but the one he’s hurt the worst?

It’s always been Leanne.


	20. Word Prompts (S87): Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> related to [Counterclockwise 'verse](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11365782/chapters/25442715)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follows Chapter 19, related to Chapters 13 and 14

“Honestly, I don’t really care,” she says, voice so bland and face so blank, that it can’t be anything but the truth.

He laughs. At her fearlessness–not courage, no, for that would require fear to be brave–at her lack of emotion, her emptiness. It’d be infuriating if it weren’t also beautiful.

“They won’t be able save you,” he warns, futilely, because he knows it won’t affect her.

Maroon shrugs, or does her best approximation of one as she can while her hands are tied together behind the back of her chair.

“I don’t need them to.”

Again, Bastian laughs; his shoulders shaking uncomfortably against his own bindings.

—

Here’s the thing: both of them were aiming at someone else, went at each other for being in the cross hairs, and in their distraction were both arrested.

“Who were you going for?” Bastian asks, because there’s not much else to do but talk to a fellow prisoner.

Or ignore them. Maroon stays silent.

“I’ll show you mine,” he adds for incentive.

She scoffs, “Everyone knows who yours is,” Maroon says, and she’s not wrong. While Bastian’s motivations have always been a mystery to the people of this age, his goals have always been straightforward.

“Poor girl,” Maroon continues, blunt but sincere, “Having a mad dog on her trail.”

Bastian snarls, heedless of the obvious, immediate connection, “Leanne doesn’t need your pity.”

Maroon smirks, the first hint of an expression on her face, “Do you?”

—

At about two thirty in the morning, the cameras aimed at the precinct’s holding cells stutter briefly before beginning a fifteen minute loop. A high pitched whistle is the only warning either of them get before, with a boom, the outside wall of Bastian’s cell suddenly ceases to be.

“Took you long enough,” Maroon calls out, standing up from her cot.

Bastian, confused and shaken out of his slumber, nonetheless prepares himself for a fight.

“Sorry, boss,” a young woman’s voice calls back, before someone–two someones, identical someones–step in through the massive hole, “We had to shake Thunderbolt–she’s always been tenacious.”

Bastian processes the scene. “I thought you said you wouldn’t need them to save you,” he shoots at his fellow prisoner, unimpressed.

In response, somehow, impossibly, Maroon steps through the bars of her cell then his, as if she were nothing more than just a hologram. Which is, grudgingly, impressive.

“I don’t,” she says simply, before gesturing at him, then the twins, “They’re here to save you.”

“Your Majesty,” the twins say in unison, before bowing.

He laughs.


	21. Spectra ficlet (2016-06-08)

“He’s a menace,” she spits out, mouth twisted and eyes narrowed.

And Cathy would assume that was it, had her sister not continued, “But I suppose he thinks the same of me. Which is fair enough.”

“And that’s why you work well together?” Cathy asks, curiously, confused.

Her sister sighs, voice going soft in a way Cathy doesn’t and might very well never understand, “We’re perfect together.”

—

It’s straight out of a B-list action flick, or an airport novel, or even a bright and colorful cartoon series, but unfortunately for her it’s real life: Cathy Xanthe is from a family of secret agents.

Her parents were partners, the best of the agency in their prime, apparently, while her sister is on track to be the same with her own partner.

Cathy prefers a more… hands off approach. The world is steadily becoming more and more digital–why use guns and chit chat when a string of code can get you what you want far more efficiently? And, well, computers don’t require nearly as much emotional upkeep as a partner does.

—

Cathy prides herself on being a fairly neutral force in the industry. She’ll code for any party, provided her fees get paid of course, with the understanding that, well, no hard feelings if she’s paid to break it the next day. All of her jobs are one-offs, and while she might have repeat clients, they know better than to expect any loyalty from her.

Which is why everyone is surprised when she accepts Irina Aubrey’s offer. No one more than her, she’s sure.

She’s not entirely sure what made her take it–an ongoing job as a member of a team, of all things–but it’s not entirely without perks. Aubrey has a very nice set up ready for her, and has assured her that, so long is its not actively against the team’s missions, then Cathy can continue her side business.

Which is good, because even if her neutrality has been compromised, Cathy’s not going to let her presence diminish.

—

The whole “everyone’s allowed their secrets” is an absolute load of rot. Especially given that basically everyone on the team has decided to use their real name. Or near enough to it.

For Cathy that’s just strategic–her name is her brand and her shield–but it’s not the same for everyone else. Aubrey, she knows is from an old money old world Family–though with the obvious pseudonym, she’s not quite sure which one–the kind that would view the Kelleys and the now-extinct Falcones and crass upstarts. She’s too used to being listened to, and considering she’s paying for the entire facility out of her own pocket, maybe, she has good reason to.

Tanj–and as far as Cathy can find, that is her only name–is a fairly well known player in the industry. Not someone Cathy’s worked with previously, but she has a decent reputation. If it weren’t for their vastly differing methodologies and philosophies about crime, she probably would have proposed a permanent partnership before. There’s something appealing about the idea of having a master of disguise do all the groundwork: though perhaps, she’s leaning too far on her family’s daring tales of adventure.

Violette Jones she has worked with before, actually, in a second-hand way. Cathy remembers the old hunched over man who also went by Jones. All scars and whipcord muscles and a complete lack of technical knowledge, but the wisdom at least to make sure his protege would be functional in the future. It was an annoying three weeks of teaching the two of them the basics, which should have been one week if it weren’t for their combined sheer incompetence. Oh, good people, definitely. The kind of people she’d want on her side in a fight for sure. But by god.

It’s Yasmine that scares her the most, actually, and not for the reasons one would think. There’s not much an unofficial surgeon can do without stepping over the line, and Cathy had always maintained her neutrality. Crime is crime and profit is profit, sometimes you just have to close your eyes. But Yasmine Odell is–either knowingly or not–using the name of a dead man who saved her parents lives on multiple occasions. And Cathy believes in paying one’s debts–especially the those of the life owing variety.

As for Frances? Ah, well, that is an amusing story, isn’t it?

—

“Going out,” Cathy says, waving at Violette who nods back and resumes watch.

No tech genius, sure, but the Jones name has always been synonymous with security (whether giving it or breaking it) and Cathy can think of far less fortified places to work from.

Tonight, though, is a delivery for one of her outside clients. She can’t host this deal in Aubrey’s place. Considering who the client is, that would just be in bad taste.

It only takes fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant where they’ll meet up, but Cathy takes twenty. She’s not beholden to anyone but herself.

Certainly not the head of The Flock.


	22. Word Prompts (R21): Religious

“Will you take them?” A small, quiet question. Pleading, but prideful, more demand than request.

You let your fingers fall to the desk, to the photo of the twins, young and solemn and scared. How long has it been since you had partners? Years? Decades? Human lifespans are so short.

Your last partner is long passed, now, and her descendants unable to carry the burden–the gift! (the curse)–of being your new partner. But these girls, these twins, these witches to be.

Alone, maybe not. Your power has only gotten stronger, and magic has declined amongst humans, replaced by their own unique abilities. But together?

Together it might work.

“Perhaps,” you say, identical faces looking blindly up at you. To you.

“If you do,” Mackenzie says, stubborn, voice thready with worn down age, “Keep them safe,” no need for a threat, or promise.

You don’t respond, no promises on your end either, but you’ll try your best.

After all, what creature wouldn’t do their best for their child?

-

There is something ritualistic in the gathering. The circle and the telling and the creation. Worlds and conflicts and characters springing to life from paper and pencil and plastic.

We can be anything during these times. We can do anything.

Stories, small, but moving. And isn’t that what stories are for?


	23. Twelve Sessions, Part One (2017-01-20)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continues in the following chapters

Mandatory therapy.

And that’s just.

Well that’s just fucking peachy, isn’t it? After the absolute clusterfuck that this entire month has been.

Eating like an asshole college student, living off of cheap ramen and energy drinks. Sleeping only when the sheer weight of exhaustion threatens to smother me to death.

At one point I literally forgot how to count to ten, but that was fine considering all you need to keep the beat is an eight count and there are only five people on my team.

Were.

But it’s all fine.

Now I get to waste an hour every week talking to a stranger who’s just doing this to fill some bullshit quota from the court.

Mandatory therapy.

Like any amount of therapy can fucking help.

—

“Wow,” says what’s-her-face, I don’t need to know her name, just the time and place of these damn meetings, “You look fucking exhausted.”

“No shit, dumbass,” I spit back, before the words catch up to me. Fuck. Is that going to get back to the judge?

… wait a second. Is she even allowed to talk to me like that?

“Today’s meeting clearly isn’t going to do fuck-all for anyone,” she says, calm, and maybe this past month has altered my brain to the point where I can’t even hear normal sentences without cussing being sprinkled in. Auditory hallucinations. That’s a thing, I think?

“Take a nap,” she says, waving over at the deflated, lumpy turd of a couch. It looks like she scavenged it from the curb, or ransacked some color-blind old lady’s dumpster.

It doesn’t smell like it, which is something at least; I check before taking a seat directly in the middle.

“What, really?” I ask, before tipping over to lay across the couch.

“Well I’m pretty sure you’re not going to tell me shit, so you might as well,” she says with a shrug. And, well, yeah. She does have a point.

Another wave, this one dismissing, “I’ll wake you up in fifty minutes.”

Normally, I can’t sleep around strangers–definitely not without my team to watch my back–but it’s as if now every time I get anywhere near horizontal my brain just switches off. The quiet and, admittedly, soothing sounds of paperwork don’t help much either.

I try to stay awake–pretty sure I even manage to do so for ten minutes–but it’s as if I just blinked and suddenly what’s-her-face is calling my name and waking me up. Good instincts, to not touch me. I don’t know what would’ve happened.

“Nap time’s over, Mister Ives,” she says, and there’s something about it that just.

“Don’t,” I cough out, throat clogged and gritty with even that little amount of sleep, “Don’t call me that.”

She sends me a look, unimpressed and annoyed, “I’m not fucking calling you Apex.”

She may as well have slapped me. “Not that either,” because I don’t need that shit right now, “Just call me Curtis, Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Well that’s not my name,” she says, and that’s… is that a fucking joke?

“I’m Simone Tallis. For when you get sick of calling me what’s-her-face in your head.”

Lucky guess.

“Now get the fuck out of my room. This session’s up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a highly fictionalized example of counseling. This does not reflect on anyone in real life. This is not an appropriate way for a therapist to speak to their patient. Nor is it polite for a patient to speak to their therapist this way.
> 
> Basically the equivalent of “do not do this at home,” except for therapy.


	24. Twelve Sessions, Part Two (2017-01-21)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continues from the previous chapter, continues in the following chapters

Second session, no way am I going to fall asleep.

For one, in the week since that first session it seems like I’ve done nothing but catch up on my sleep debt.

For two, I’m pretty sure napping during my mandatory therapy isn’t allowed. Or it’s a massive waste of taxpayer money. My money? My insurance company’s money?

Whatever.

For three? I’m not a fucking toddler that needs to be put down for a nap whenever I have a tantrum. I’m a grown ass adult, I can stay awake and not talk about my fucking feelings for an entire hour.

I’m going to ice out what’s-her-face.

—

“Hey catch,” I hear the second I step through the door, and a box of cards come  flying in my direction.

Super speed isn’t one of my gifts, and I’m not expecting it. Still, it’s pretty embarrassing when it just hits me in the chest and falls to the floor, hands coming up too late to do shit.

What’s-her-face looks at the box on the floor then up to me, skepticism blatant and unflattering.

She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to say anything.

Super powered vigilante Apex can’t catch a box of cards even with warning. Clearly, her expression says, if it’s not punching something or jerking off, my hands are fucking useless.

“I was gonna suggest we play cards, if you wanted something a little more active than nap time,” she says, tone edging into sarcasm, “but if this is the kind of swift reaction times I can expect from you today, I can just put on some music and do more paperwork.”

Growling, I bend down to pick up the cards, and I can feel the heat on my face. God, am I blushing? This is just fan-fucking-tastic. I kick the door closed behind me–strong enough to slam but not enough to break it–and sit on one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table from her.

“Just deal,” I say, tossing the deck onto the table, watching it spin and slide over to what’s-her-face, “As long as it’s not Go Fish.”

There aren’t many card games that function well with only two people. Bullshit is out, as is Crazy Eights. Poker we try for three rounds before giving up, Blackjack for two. Speed might work if it weren’t for the fact that, if I were to slap something–the table or what’s-her-face’s hand–I’d end up breaking it and that fairly counterproductive. And shitty.

She’s in the middle of teaching me gin rummy–or fleecing me at gin rummy–when a soft chime sound off from her desk.

She glances at the clock and begins packing up the cards even though she hasn’t finished her explanation.

“Time’s up, Curtis,” she says, and for a second I look up at her in confusion, “See you next week.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a highly fictionalized example of counseling. This does not reflect on anyone in real life. This is not an appropriate way for a therapist to speak to their patient. Nor is it polite for a patient to speak to their therapist this way.
> 
> Basically the equivalent of “do not do this at home,” except for therapy.


	25. Twelve Sessions, Part Three (2017-01-23)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continues from the previous chapter, continues in the following chapters

The thing is, it doesn’t make sense for me to have therapy. I’m not the one who needs it.

And I don’t mean that in a “therapy is for crazies” way.

It’s just that I’m not allowed to cry.

And I don’t mean THAT in a “real men don’t cry” way.

It’s just that, in comparison to what Alvin’s lost, to what Doc has lost–hell, even that fucking cat burglar, though no way she’d end up in a position where a judge would send her to therapy instead of straight to jail.

In comparison to them, my loss isn’t that bad. Barely anything.

I don’t get to cry over a paper cut when everyone else has a bleeding gut wound.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

I’ve never gotten a paper cut in my life.

—

“Are we actually going to talk today?” I ask, sitting, waiting. I’ve wised up to what’s-her-face’s plans and I’m not going to fall for it.

She looks at me skeptically. She’s always looking at me skeptically.

Then again, it’s not like I’ve done anything impressive in this room.

“Do you want to?” she asks, instead of answering. And doesn’t that just rankle.

“Fuck no,” I spit out, like the very thought is disgusting.

“Then we won’t,” she says simply and. That’s just.

“What the fuck are you here for then?” I ask, getting to my feet, and now her look is changing. Now she looks afraid.

As she should be, Apex can punch through solid steel.

That just makes me angrier.

“What the fuck am I here for? What’s the fucking point of all of this?”

It’s tempting to just throw the chair against the wall. To pick up the entire table and throw it. There is rage and frustration and sometimes you just want to break something.

Usually there’s a villain’s face that needs punching, or an army of killer robots.

Here in this room it’s just me and what’s-her-face and all her shitty government subsidized furniture.

“How is this fucking helping anything?” I shout and I can feel my throat close up, my voice crack, “This can’t change shit.”

There’s a tin of individually wrapped candies on her desk. It hardly weighs a thing, but the spray of bright colors against the wall is soothing in its own way.

What’s-her-face looks calm again, as if she knows that childish minor outburst was enough to vent.

I sit back down.

“I don’t want to talk,” I say, ashamed.

She stands up, walks around her desk.

For a moment, I think she’s going to go for the door. Get out of range of the mad meta. That would be the smart thing.

Instead she goes to where the candy tin has fallen, kneels down and begins picking up the little wrapped colorful pieces.

Musingly she says, “I hate the blue ones,” as if that were at all related to what just happened, “I mean, what is blue supposed to be? The other colors make sense, red is cherry, orange is orange, yellow is lemon, green is lime… or green apple I suppose, and purple is grape. But what the hell is blue supposed to be?”

Some of the pieces have bounced back to land near me. Even more ashamed I crouch down to help her pick them up.

“Not that artificial cherry or grape taste good, but at least they correspond to actual fruits. It’s not as if the blue ones are blueberry flavored.”

The tin is dented slightly–super strength aside, it was like trying to throw a feather and the impact was less than stellar–but still functional. Carefully we both gather our sugary loot before going back to our seats.

“Here,” she says, holding out a candy to drop into my hand.

It’s blue.

“You just said how shitty these were,” I snort, but begin unwrapping it anyway.

“No, I said I hated them. They’re pure sugar trying to be a color, that’s just wrong.”

“So what, you’re foisting them off on me instead?”

“You have one, and I’ll have one, and we’ll both decide what bullshit fake fruit they’re trying to be,” she has a blue candy in her hands, too.

Thirty minutes and the session ends with no agreement as to whether the blue candy is meant to be bubblegum or blue raspberry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a highly fictionalized example of counseling. This does not reflect on anyone in real life. This is not an appropriate way for a therapist to speak to their patient. Nor is it polite for a patient to speak to their therapist this way.
> 
> Basically the equivalent of “do not do this at home,” except for therapy.


	26. Twelve Sessions, Part Four (2017-01-24)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continues from the previous chapter, continues in the following chapters

This is the pertinent fact of the matter:

We were five and now we are three.

Put like that, it doesn’t sound too bad. The team used to be only three before. Now we’re back to original numbers, if not the original line-up.

Alvin and Brian and I–we were three, once.

Then came Joy, on an intermittent basis, then Leanne from decades in the future.

Five mismatching parts trying to make a whole.

Then goodbye to Leanne, gone as quickly as she came. Goodbye to Brian who always tried to reach beyond himself.

Goodbye five.

Three doesn’t seem enough anymore.

—

Outside the door to what’s-her-face’s room, I hesitate.

It’s not a sudden realization, or even a slow creeping one, but rather a reorientation of attitude.

There is no point in continuing the one-sided petulance. It’s more energy than it’s worth. And who does it help? Not what’s-her-face, and certainly not me.

I still don’t think I should be here. But I’m here and being an asshole isn’t going to change that.

Before I can get a hand on the doorknob, what’s-her-face opens the door.

She doesn’t look surprised to see me.

“Ah, good idea, Curtis. Just a second,” she says, gesturing with one hand, before shutting the door in my face.

I stare, stupidly, until she opens the door again, this time with a jacket and scarf on.

She locks the room behind her and walks to the end of the hallway.

“Well, come on!” she prompts, waving me over.

I follow, bewildered.

Outside the building, the weather is chilly. Weak winter sun filtering down through the clouds, but harsh winds more than making up for it. Our breaths puff out as quickly vanished steam.

“What are we doing?” I ask, confused. It seems like today is the day of confusion.

“Have you eaten, Curtis?” she asks, “I’m hungry.”

It’s three in the afternoon.

I say as much out loud.

“That is neither an answer or an argument. Come on, there’s a diner at the end of the block.”

“Is this allowed?” I ask, but follow her anyway. I could always go for pancakes.

“It’s your therapy,” she says with a shrug.

The diner is one of those old relics, clean but aged poorly–not one of those fashionably retro places. I’m not sure if it’s empty because of the time or because of unpopularity.  

Regardless, I’m always up for some pancakes.

It’s a mostly quiet session, consisting of eating noises and the casually indifferent check ins from the waiter.

At the end, Simone pays for the check and leads us back before the hour is up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a highly fictionalized example of counseling. This does not reflect on anyone in real life. This is not an appropriate way for a therapist to speak to their patient. Nor is it polite for a patient to speak to their therapist this way.
> 
> Basically the equivalent of “do not do this at home,” except for therapy.


	27. Twelve Sessions, Part Five (2017-01-25)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continues from the previous chapter, continues in the following chapters

I remember the early years with fondness, grief, and no small amount of embarrassment.

The three of us were boys. Weird, stupid boys with more power than sense and the worst taste in food.

It’s amazing that Doc hadn’t just thrown us to the wolves and been done with us.

(That’s not a pun about Alvin, by the way.)

We were high on the adrenaline, the thrill of being young and being heroes and making a change in the world. We fought bad guys, foiled their schemes, wrapped them up for the authorities to deal with, and went on our way as if there were no repercussions.

Stupid.

Joy made us see that things weren’t nearly so black and white. We grew and we learned and–

–and Leanne arrived just in time to see everything begin to crumble.

—

No field trip today. Which is just as well. I’m feeling chatty: I’ll talk, but not about what happened.

What happened can’t be changed, why talk about it?

“I know a Simon,” I begin, taking charge for once in these sessions. If she’s surprised at all, it doesn’t show on her face.

“He’s Al–uh, Silverfang’s boyfriend. Shit,” I stutter, uncertain. My identity–neither of them–isn’t a secret, but the same cannot be said of the rest of my team.

It’s hard to keep track of who knows what.

Well, it was. There’s less to keep track of now.

“I know who Alvin is,” she assures, simply, and gestures for me to continue.

“Yeah, so, Simon. Alvin’s boyfriend. I used to think that was hilarious because of the chipmunks. You know, all they were missing was a Theodore. But then I thought about it more and I realized that’s weird because aren’t the chipmunks brothers?”

The words flow out of me too quickly for her to answer, not that there’s much of an answer to give.

“And why is it called Alvin and the Chipmunks anyway? Isn’t Alvin a chipmunk, too? It’s kind of redundant. Then again, I guess Alvin and his two brothers isn’t exactly catchy. Though it’s still pretty shitty considering it’s like saying oh, hey, you two we don’t really care about you. Just do some backup vocals for Alvin. Now he’s the real money maker.

The chipmunk, not the real Alvin. Al is basically the trashiest person to ever live. I swear one time I found him eating pizza he fished out of a dumpster. And you’d think what with the whole enhanced sense of smell that’d put him off, but it was an entire free pizza that someone tossed out because it was also a proposal pizza.

And who does that? Who thinks–oh, hey, I’ll propose marriage via pizza what could possibly go wrong? I mean, the eating dumpster pizza thing is still fucking gross never mind that it had still been warm in the box and untouched, but I already knew that about Al so it’s not like I was too surprised.

But the proposal pizza–the pizza proposal?–that’s just. And it wasn’t even any of the fancy toppings, either. Just pepperoni. Like, shell out for some gourmet chicken or whatever. Honestly, who does that?

Then again, if it were up to Al, he’d do a pizza proposal. Or, you know, try to. Except I’m pretty sure that even Al knows that Simon’s too classy for a pizza proposal. Joy would definitely shut that shit down before it took off. Nothing but the best for her baby brother. Never mind that they started dating before she joined the team.”

“Joy?”

Shit.

“Yeah… Simon’s older sister…”

I fucked up.

There are only two women on the team. Were. Jaguar and Anachron.

One of them is a reformed cat burglar (pun, annoyingly enough, intended). The other is a time traveller that has already disappeared.

Neither of them are public with their identities. Not that it would matter for Leanne.

Shit. I fucked up real bad.

I should have just kept talking, the silence is really fucking conspicuous.

“… I’d at least spring for multiple pizzas, if I were going to do a pizza proposal,” Simone says, slowly, as if the silence had a function to let her consider such a hypothetical and not a complete fuck up on my part.

Still, I take the out for what it is, and continue my word barf.

“Right? And pepperoni wouldn’t have worked, anyway, because Simon’s a vegetarian…”

By the end of the session, my throat feels sore from talking about absolutely nothing and I only slipped up the once.

As a parting gift, Simone tosses me a bottle of water–which I do catch–and, considering there’s not hint of it on the news the next morning, does not pass along valuable intel about still-wanted felon Jaguar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a highly fictionalized example of counseling. This does not reflect on anyone in real life. This is not an appropriate way for a therapist to speak to their patient. Nor is it polite for a patient to speak to their therapist this way.
> 
> Basically the equivalent of “do not do this at home,” except for therapy.


	28. Twelve Sessions, Part Six (2017-01-26)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continues from the previous chapter, continues in the following chapters

It’s weird how quiet the city has been. Hardly any crime that the police can’t handle themselves, no meta threat that needs much more than just Apex showing up.

Which is good.

I love this city, I’ve fought hard to keep it safe, but I can’t say I don’t appreciate the calm.

Even though, given the team’s numbers have been severely reduced, criminals should want to make a big move. Take advantage.

But I’m grateful because I’m pretty sure if another crisis hits it’ll just be me facing it.

Not that I’m afraid–Apex is indestructible,.

Nothing can hurt me.

—

We’re halfway through the assigned sessions and while I’m definitely less pissed off at the very idea of therapy, that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable.

Simone isn’t my friend. She’s my therapist.

I’m distinctly reminded of that at this moment.

The file she puts on the table between us, the file with my name on it, is a show of trust.

Oddly, it also feels like a betrayal.

“What the fuck do you want me to do with this?” I ask, hands curling into fists.

Simone doesn’t look afraid at all. But I can’t tell if that’s just her game face.

For all I know, she’s always had a game face on around me.

“It’s been a month and a half,” she says instead of answering, which is typical and nonetheless stings, “since the judge assigned you mandatory therapy…”

“I know. I was there,” and if there’s a snide tone in my voice then, well, I fucking wonder why that might be.

Undeterred, she continues, “Aren’t you curious about your progress?”

“No,” I say. I reach out for the folder anyway. “Doesn’t this defeat the purpose? Aren’t you supposed to keep this a secret from me?” I ask as I scan the first page–just basic info about me, a summary of judge’s mandate, the reason behind the therapy.

“Not necessarily,” Simone says, “You’re a patient, not a lab rat. Keeping secrets from you isn’t going to help.”

I flip to the second page, where the therapist’s notes are meant to begin.

“This is bullshit.”

“Is it?”

“You wrote that I’m bad at poker. And that I like jam on my pancakes.”

“Well,” Simone says dryly, “That is a weird thing to put on your pancakes.”

“No it’s not!” I defend, reflexively, “And that’s not the point.”

“What point?”

“How is me thinking the blue candy is supposed to be blue raspberry going to help anyone?”

“You say that a lot,” she says, always with her tangents.

I sigh, frustrated, “Say what?”

“You always bring up how something will or won’t help. How talking won’t help anything, how blue candy can’t help anyone, how you being here isn’t helping,” she looks at me, serious and steely and…

Simone is not my friend. She’s my therapist.

“You’re a person, Curtis” she says unexpectedly.

“No shit,” comes out automatically.

Her gaze turns sharper, somehow, “You’re not just a hero. You’re a person, too.”

My hands have been flipping through the file, more inanities over the past five sessions written in Simone’s slanted handwriting.

There’s a page that only has tally marks on the top. Five of them.

“You’re allowed to grieve for your friends. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. You don’t have to talk to anyone if that’s how you feel. We can spend the next six sessions as we have the last few. I can fill pages of notes on your appalling taste in pancake toppings, or maybe I’ll bring in my hamsters for a session, or we can just sit quietly and not say or do anything.

"But do it because you don’t like me. Do that because you don’t like therapy. Burn through these sessions because they’re mandatory and you think they’re a waste of time. If you go home and cry and scream and punch things and mourn because you don’t want to do any of that in front of me that’s fine.

"Don’t stay quiet because you think that’s what you have to do. You’re allowed to grieve, Curtis.”

Five tally marks on an otherwise blank page.

Simone is my therapist, not my friend.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

Most of my friends are gone–gone to ground, gone back home, gone to the future, gone.

We are quiet for a long time. If Simone is disappointed, she doesn’t show it.

The chime from her phone sounds off, and the both of us stand.

Before I leave, though, I say, “His name was Brian, but on the field he used Griever.

"He was my friend, and now he’s dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a highly fictionalized example of counseling. This does not reflect on anyone in real life. This is not an appropriate way for a therapist to speak to their patient. Nor is it polite for a patient to speak to their therapist this way.
> 
> Basically the equivalent of “do not do this at home,” except for therapy.


	29. Untitled (2017-04-18)

“These are beautiful,” he says, carefully teasing the stack of photographs apart. Spread out, they’re more tasteful, almost artistic, but the truth is–

“These are blackmail,” she chides him, straightening them once more, tapping the edges for that added neatness. She hands him a camera–a little beaten up, scuffed and scratched in places, but still perfectly serviceable–and gives him a nod towards the door.

“Off you go now,” she says, “time to earn our bread and butter.”

—

The envelopes are grey: light enough to blend in amongst all the mail being sorted at the post office, but dark enough to stand out to their recipients.

And they match her name, of course.

“Grey Investigations, how can I help you?” answers Jack to the phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear as he types away on his work laptop.

The office is only a small fraction of the property she rents, the rest a warehouse fit to bursting with filing cabinets and opaque plastic bins built into formidable columns. Only some of them are evidence, the rest are red herrings and the overflow from next door’s cash and carry.

They’ve been broken into three times in as many months–the property managers are getting irritated with her–but nothing of importance has gone missing.

Still, it wouldn’t do for her only employee to be mugged or some such in retaliation. He has mace and a taser and height if not breadth, but perhaps its time for her to complete his training.

Zelia surveys her small kingdom and smiles.

—

When she was young, magic was young–bright and eager and constantly at her fingertips, ready to make her imagination into reality, to turn her will into truth.

Now, magic is sluggish, hibernating, waiting for the future where it will awaken lively once more. Her oldest friend even more powerful for the hiatus.

It will be beautiful, truly.

She will live for a long time, but not long enough to see that.


	30. A Doctor Kaiza Author's Cut ficlet (2017-07-14)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> background details for Doctor Ellen Tsukiko Kaiza, prompted by anonymous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of the [Ask Box Author's Cut](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11547186/chapters/25929552) event
> 
> closely related to [this Counterclockwise ficlet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11365782/chapters/25550235) and these Ode to 11010201 [Redux](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11371599/chapters/25576239) [ficlets](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11371599/chapters/25576269)

Witches don’t like her.

That’s fine. She doesn’t much like witches either. The way they act as if their power actually means anything to her, like thunder in front of a mountain. She was immortal long before the resurgence of magic, ancient before they cobbled together laws and customs; children playing at adulthood.

Little Faye Peridot still hates and fears her for taking away her sister. She’s the oldest luminary on the Premier Witch Council.

Power is not what earns Kaiza’s respect and she’s lived so long, age means nothing to her.

///

Brian becomes her ward mostly by accident. It is one of her many regrets.

If she had been more proactive about it, more clear about her affection for him, more available and open, less cold and objective, would anything have changed?

Probably not. And even so, it’s too late.

If she’s learned one thing over the centuries it’s that the only thing as bad as immortality inflicted on mortals is the ability to time travel.

There be dragons, but at least dragons can be killed.

///

“Have mercy on me,” Nyx says, as elegantly out of place in Kaiza’s clinic as ever, “don’t you have any sympathy for a worried mother?”

It’d help Nyx’s case more if she didn’t sound like she were reading from a particularly bland phonebook.

“If ever I did,” Kaiza shoots back, “I’d have used it up on some other mother in far more need of it than you.”

The list is long, there were tears and threats and fruitless, desperate bargaining. Kaiza has done worse to less deserving mothers, has felt guilt for greater crimes.

“Suck it up, your daughter is going to school, not to war. She doesn’t need me playing guardian angel… And plus, mercy’s not really your thing, now is it?”

No, she doesn’t have any sympathy for Nyx, the best Devil’s Advocate on this plane and the next.

///

She is so old that werewolf pack boundaries build around her, not the other way around. The Delano Pack to the northeast, with the sprawling forests and rocky mountains, the Chand Pack to the southwest towards Cadmium City and the coast.

Her clinic and, by extension, the town of Belleview which also grew around her is not neutral territory. It’s her territory.

Or so the alphas of both packs say, shoulders back and nostrils flared. Ready to fight her, each other, anyone who so much as makes eye contact.

Peace between packs is more important than her growing irritation, but only just.

“You might as well just combine packs. Then there wouldn’t be anymore boundary issues,” she says, exasperated by all the useless back and forth. She may be needling them just a little: she almost wants a fight to break out just so she has a reason to smack them down.

Instead, both alphas respond with considering noises.

In three decades she will be reluctantly impressed by their chosen heir.

///

Every year, on the anniversary of her curse, she gets an envelope from Grey Investigations.

What a waste of paper, she thinks, as she throws it away. Jack should know better by now.

But Jack always was an optimistic idiot.

It’s what got them cursed in the first place.


	31. Word Prompts (D7): Dealing

There’s a card on your window when you wake up in the morning, eight pointed star and smaller, repeating fractals in alternating black and white and silver.

The scariest thing isn’t that you recognize the symbol–though it’s been years since you’ve seen it–but that the card is on your window.

On the inside of your window.

They were inside your house.

They’ve found you.

///

When you were younger, you were praised for being powerful, for being smart, for being charming.

“You’d be a wonderful spell caster,” your mother said.

“What about a summoner?” your aunt offered instead.

“Healers are always in high demand and greatly regarded,” your grandmother added, and you nodded in agreement.

You could have been anything, but you chose to be a diviner.

You chose wrong.

///

As the abilities of individual witches grew–tied to the earth or bloodlines or other tangible, reachable things–beliefs changed.

Religion became superstition became silly old bedtime stories.

The gods were forgotten and the divine faded from memory.

Or so the public thinks.

///

You can’t hide from them forever.

You never thought you could.


	32. Word Prompts (J7): Joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> references [Counterclockwise](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11365782/chapters/25442715)

“So angry,” Allen says with his easy, genial smile, a softer version for so early in the morning. He’s fond of her and her brother, still thinks of them as the orphan kids who asked to live in the room above his bakery years and years ago.

“A coffee and pastry would help with that,” she responds, grumpy, but with far less bite than she would with most anyone else.

She’s pretty fond of him, too.

Allen shakes his head, tuts at her; the flour in his hair blends in with the patches of gray and white. He still thinks of her as a kid, but she also sometimes forgets how old he really is.

“You need sleep, not caffeine and sugar. And I need to bake today’s bread, not babysit a brat. Upstairs with you now, your brother’s waiting.”

It’s not Allen’s fault that’s a lie.

///

She hears it a lot–

You don’t look very happy.

Or,

Shouldn’t you smile more, then?

Or, even,

Your parents were pretty wrong about that.

–the last one usually causes her to lash out, parents are a touchy subject for good reason, but it’s not exactly inaccurate.

There’s not a lot in her life that matches her name.

///

The world has gotten a lot stranger in the past year or so. Or perhaps it’s always been strange and only now she’s beginning to notice, only now it’s beginning to resurge.

Regardless, she prides herself on being the best; on being so skilled that rumors whisper maybe something is strange about her, too.

It’s sheer competence, mostly, with some engineering and parkour of course. And luck, she’d grudgingly admit.

Still, she makes a name for herself, one much larger than herself, and for a while she thinks that’s enough.

One night she runs into a man who can turn into a literal wolf.

Luck isn’t enough.

///

She always loves the wrong people.

People who will leave her–whether they want to or not. People who would rather see her in jail than free. People who could never make her happy.

When she meets Ann, she thinks this time will be the exception.

And for a while, it is.

Just a little while.

Ann doesn’t mean to leave her, doesn’t want to leave her, but leave she does.

(A decade later, Joy will realize that even if Ann had stayed it wouldn’t have worked. Normal people falling in love with gods rarely ends happily)


	33. Untitled (2017-08-30)

If you’re doing it right, no one will ever thank you for doing your job.

If you’re doing it right, no one will ever know.

But still, it’s something that needs doing. If you don’t do it then who will?

///

“Aren’t you tired?” your cousin asks you, as you creep into the house at three in the morning.

You don’t much feel like confrontation now, shrugging off your jacket which weighs too heavily on your shoulders, sodden and dark. It squelches against the floor, and you know your aunt will pitch a fit if it ruins the hardwood floor, so you kick at it half-heartedly until it’s on the massive dog bed instead.

Eh.

“You should be asleep,” you say to your cousin, blindly making your way into the kitchen. Your night vision is shot–an exploded tanker on the highway, seven dead–and for all your stupid supernatural responsibilities you hardly get any of the benefits. You’re hungry as hell.

Well. You might be hungry as hell. You’re the only one in this house who has never been there.

“First day of school tomorrow,” she responds, sheepishly, “I’m too nervous to sleep, and plus I was waiting for you, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

In the fridge there’s a tupperware of some kind of pasta, which is probably what dinner was tonight–you deliberately try to avoid those, still so uncertain in your place here–or, alternatively, a brick of cheese with an upcoming expiration date and a bag of pretzels that’s been untouched on the counter for two weeks.

Your cousin chatters on, “Uncle Az said I should keep an eye out for you, since you don’t remember your limits and don’t take good care of yourself.”

You shut the door firmly. Not so loud as to slam, noise echoing up and through the rest of the house where your aunt is sleeping, but definitive enough. Mackenzie presses her lips together, startled and a little afraid.

“If my father wanted me to remember my limits or be safe or–” you scoff “–happy, he should have let me die as a normal human.”

///

Angels–or the supernatural beings that humans think of as angels–don’t often fall in love.

They are devoted to their duty, to their god–or whatever high power humans think of as gods–and, frankly, are snobby, oblivious, sanctimonious assholes.

Generally, it’s better for all involved if angels don’t fall in love: they’re horrible lovers and even worse parents.


	34. Untitled (2017-08-31)

When you were younger and a normal human–or, at least, thought you were a normal human–you lived with your mom.

Your mom was actually a normal human, had normal human feelings and concerns: how to pay next month’s rent, trying to raise you all by herself, scheduling her two jobs and your childhood, and making sure the both of you were safe and fed and happy

It was a difficult life, but you were loved.

Now you live in a mansion at least five times the size of your mom’s apartment with your cousin, your aunt, the giant dog which may or may not have three heads, and your aunt’s demonic servant.

It’s awful.

You miss the life you had before. You miss your mom. It’s not as if you can never see her, though–one of the rare perks of being a psychopomp–but you know the first thing out of your mouth won’t be “I love you, I miss you,” but instead “What were you thinking?”

///

When people think of Death, well. Usually they don’t think of Death as a person. As time passes, and belief in the old with it, Death is more construct–intangible, maddening, unknowable–than a person.

For the few who think of Death as a person, beyond the fleeting euphemisms or poetry, they picture someone dark. Someone stoic and frightening, fierce yet implacable. The Grim Reaper, the harvester of human souls must be, after all, a dark serious figure.

No one thinks of the Angel of Death as a drunk, deadbeat dad.

And yet.

///

On the first day of school you are already exhausted, no doubt a blight upon the otherwise picturesque experience for your cousin.

The school you went to before, in the heart of Cadmium City was in a vastly different income level, and had rusting chain link fences all around it. Everything here looks like a movie. Inside, you marvel at the walls–which aren’t even cardboard!–and the neat tiles of floor before a scent catches you.

Not the industrial strength cleaner or the smell of hundreds of teenagers or even cafeteria smells. No, it smells like death. A lot of death.

In about four months from now.

Gods–if they do exist–damn it.


	35. Word Prompts (R17): Rejection

It takes about three weeks to realize that this situation isn’t sustainable.

The draw of your psychopomp responsibilities take you out at all hours, sleep and homework and even school be damned. Your sporadic attendance isn’t favorably looked upon, even if you weren’t constantly dozing during classes and just a step off from the perfect student ideal.

Your cousin’s forehead is nearly constantly furrowed–confusion or frustration, you’re not sure which–and while your aunt could not be more pleased with your shiny new renegade reputation, that’s not exactly a vote of confidence.

You have detention for the next four months–not that you’ll be going to them, afternoon is apparently a very popular time for dying in this town–but still, it’s the principle of the matter.

Something’s gotta give. You’re afraid that something will end up being you.

///

A fire.

That’s what killed you. You, your mom, and almost two dozen other residents of the Montenegro apartment complex.

Faulty wiring, a particularly dry season, and exposed insulation going up like kindling. Fire escapes not up to code, people taking the batteries out of their smoke detectors, and no extinguishers to be seen.

The news reported it as an accident: a horrific, compounding accident.

When your father brings you back from the dead, he informs you that is false.

///

You don’t actually care, is the thing: you wonder if this has something to do with dying once, or if its the newly disclosed other half of your heritage.

Psychopomps can’t afford to care. Emotions mean attachments, attachments mean mistakes, mistakes mean the difference between life and death.

There are other kinds of attachments.

You can’t get rid of all of them.


	36. Word Prompts (M30): Mother

Your mom’s snores sound through the one room apartment you share, a familiar if somewhat irritating lullaby.

This summer has been not only hot but humid, oppressive and thick on your lungs. You’ve left the windows open–no fear seven stories up–but there is not even the slightest of breezes to alleviate the misery. Instead, the smell of weed and urine waft your way, and your nose wrinkles in disgust.

You’re writing an essay about a man long dead and cannot comprehend why this could possibly matter to your future.

Your goals are not so lofty or beautiful as to be considered dreams, but you one day want to have a stable, comfortable life. One satisfactory enough to share with your mom, one to show her how grateful you are and how much you love her. One in which she would be proud of you–and maybe a place with separate bedrooms and soundproofed walls.

Looking back, you realize that they were dreams: small and intimate, but still yours.

Now they’re as useless as that essay of a man long dead.

///

There’s a trick, you realize, to speaking to your aunt and it is, simply, this: make sure your victory is also hers.

There is no winning an argument against her, she’s a DA by nature and by trade–though the letters stand for different things entirely–but she is witty and sharp and, in this strange existence your father has doomed you to, fun in a reckless sort of way.

She is, oddly enough, the most stable thing in your life right now and you appreciate it. Being a teenager is already tough without throwing in existential crises on death and the afterlife and religious, supernatural heritages.

Last year, your biggest concern was whether or not you had enough lunch money for the week.

This year it’s trying to figure out what massacre will happen and if you can possibly prevent it.

Probably not–you’ve tried before, is the thing, and have yet to succeed–but maybe fate is exactly like your aunt.

You don’t need to overpower fate, you just need to outmaneuver it.


	37. Untitled (2017-09-11)

“What are you doing rummaging around my kitchen like a mouse? Stupid child,” she exhales, shaking her head. Still, she can’t help the small smile that curls the corner of her mouth.

“Just like my father?” the little fool asks, petulant and pouting, not even looking up from the floor. The apple in her hand, a lovely pale pink, is nothing at all like sin.

Nyx rolls her eyes. “No, dear, your father would never be allowed through the door of my house,” her words are harsh, but she tempers it with a gentle hand on her niece’s shoulder. “Now please sit and eat a proper meal. And don’t forget dessert–I pride myself on having a devil’s food cake to die for.”

It’s a terrible pun, both ways in fact, but it makes the girl smile.

///

This is The Best. Year. Ever.

No more homeschooling! Your mom is finally letting you go out to an actual real school with actual real people. You’ll get to meet normal kids and talk about normal things and have a normal life.

Sure, your dog isn’t like other dogs, and your family isn’t like other parents. And you’re not entirely sure how to explain Grimaldo, your mom’s demonic minion, but you’re sure you’ll figure out something.

That’s what school is for, after all, right?

But the best thing is: this is the year you met your cousin. And she’s going to live with you.


	38. Untitled (2018-02-01)

Take a human soul–give it the ability to understand non-linear, infinite time. Give it a goal to obsess over. Give it a challenge, give it a would-be-martyr, give it the opportunity to ruin its own odds.

Give it just the right amount of rage, a smidgeon too much of desperation, and a faint smattering of honest affection.

Then say it failed.

Then watch it grow.

Now multiply it by three.

—

Some demons used to be human.

But not all of them.

—

The woman in the sharp suit and perfectly coiffed red hair sits amongst the worst criminals of the region in a complete state of calm.

She meets Venediktov’s eye and drains the entire teacup offered to her before rudely setting it upside down on the table. Of course, it’s not as rude as trying to poison a guest in the first place, so no one calls her out on it.

“My client was reluctant to have me come here,” she begins, letting the upper echelons of the bratva settle themselves. “Not out of any fear for my safety,” she continues, not glancing at the teacup whatsoever, “but because she is, despite herself, a good person.

"I do this not out of any duty or obligation, not for money or revenge. I do this because there is so rarely a time when I can help my client, and frankly I think this will be a satisfying experience…

"For me, that is,” she clarifies, when it looks like some of her audience has misunderstood her, relief trickling onto their faces before she bats it away.

“Frankly, Venediktov, it may be kinder to just kill your son yourself,” she says which riles the group up once more. There are protests and threats–the harsh scrape of chairs against the floor–but none from the leader who sits and listen. How smart. Well, he didn’t get to his position by being stupid.

“But I also understand what it’s like to have a child. Isn’t it terrible when they throw themselves into danger?”

She does not say: you should have kept an eye on your son. You should have had a firmer hand. His transgressions will cost him greatly, he will wish he had died instead of suffer the punishment I have in mind

What she does say is, simply, “Four tattoos.”

Some of the bratva laugh, scornful–tattoos are part and parcel of their life, there is no punishment in needles and ink–but still Venediktov remains silent.

“Your son fancies himself a handsome man. One here,” she lists, gesturing in a curve around her eye, “and here,” this time from cheek to cheek along her chin, “around his wrist,” she says with a graceful, if lazy rotation of her own, “and around his ankle,” she concludes, tapping the heel of her shoe against the ground in a sharp, punctuating knock.

Venediktov closes his eyes and turns away.

“So you are aware of what this means for your son’s fate,” Nyx smiles, before placing a simple business card on the table next to that overturned teacup. She stands.

“You have three days to make your decision.”


	39. (2018-02-16) ficlet

“The problem is,” begins Zelia, pen in hand and paper before her. She is a study in stillness, musing and wondering. The tableau is only broken by the frantic searching of her apprentice as he races back and forth across the warehouse for the items she told him to retrieve.

Nyx thinks it hilarious. “The problem is?” she prompts.

“The problem is,” Zelia repeats, “Is that he’s terribly powerful, a force unto himself, of course.”

“Of course,” Nyx agrees.

“But he’s also terribly stupid. He has no idea what he’s doing,” Zelia concludes, finally shaping her thoughts and transcribing them. It is less a letter and more a prophecy, glyphs drawn in corners to protect the information until needed.

“Isn’t that how we all started out?” Nyx asks, ever the devil’s advocate.

“Speak for yourself, demon,” Zelia scoffs, no bite in her words, “The Grey Witch is, has been, and will always be quintessential.”

Nyx knows this is not a brag.

—

Find the line.  
Find the line that will lead you home.  
Find the line that will lead you home, beyond the dangers.  
Find the line that will lead you home, beyond the dangers, above the pain.

Find the line and you will have nothing to fear.

—

“Immortality!” Zelia shouts, just one voice amongst an endless amount, “Immortality! That stupid boy!”

On her left is an empty chair, grey of course, on her right sits her teacher whose face is in her hand, shoulders shaking.

For a moment, Zelia is ashamed. Until she realizes her teacher is not crying, she’s laughing–then, Zelia just gets indignant.

“What is so funny?” she asks. How can her teacher laugh in the face of this disaster? Proof that Zelia has chosen poorly, that her apprentice–stupid boy, tampering with high magic without having any clue of the consequences–will end what should be an infinite chain.

The title of Grey Witch cannot be passed down if the holder becomes immortal.

Lifetimes wasted, magic forever devastated, all because she chose an idiot who could not grieve properly.

“Oh my darling Zelia,” her teacher says, “How I have failed you. The Grey Witch is not a line.

It’s a circle.”


	40. crossover with Dark is Rising, (2018-02-22) ficlet

The doorbell chimes and Jane, closest to the front entrance, calls out, “I’ll get it!”

She can hear Will’s acknowledgement in response over the carols on the radio, the sound of her brothers arguing about the tree and Bran’s amused laughter.

It’s been years since all of them have been together like this; she is so glad they managed to make it work this time.

Jane opens the door, curling away from the gust of cold wind blowing in, instinctively, she draws her cardigan closer though it is only thin cotton and not much protection.

The woman at the door is equally poorly dressed for the weather–not even a scarf!–but unlike Jane, she hardly seems to mind. As if she were immune to the cold, aware but uncaring of the weather.

For a moment they stare at each other.

“Hello?” Jane asks, which seems to shake the woman out of her stupor.

“My apologies,” the woman says, accent flat and abrupt. American, then, how unusual. “Is Will Stanton available?”

Jane blinks before flushing, embarrassed. Of course. This is Will’s place, after all, of course someone ringing the doorbell would be looking for him at his own flat. And then, she flushes harder.

“Please, come in. Yes, he’s–I’ll just go get him, but please, come in. It’s cold out. Sorry, I’ve been terribly rude, I should have invited you in sooner.”

“Thank you,” the woman murmurs, before stepping inside. Jane shuts the door, grateful to bask in the warmth. The woman does not do the same, as if outside and inside were indistinguishable.

“Jane?” says Will, heading their way before she can go fetch him, “Who’s at the–ah,” he cuts himself off upon seeing the woman.

Something about the air changes, and it has nothing to do with the temperature.

“Maybe you should head over to the others,” Will says to Jane without taking his eyes off the woman, “Barney and Simon were one ornament away from a tussle and we both know Bran certainly isn’t going to stop them.”

Jane, confused and a little relieved, just nods and goes.

She looks back though; it almost looks like, instead of just one stranger and her childhood friend, there were two.

///

“My apologies for intruding on the festivities, Old One,” the woman who is not just a woman says to Will. Then she stops Time.

He straightens reflexively, ready for an attack.

None come.

“It must be important,” he responds. Everything about his life as an Old One is important.

The woman nods, “Important, yes, but not urgent.” Then she seems to change, diminish almost, as she adds, sheepishly, “Unfortunately, I have a flight in three hours and have been busy at a conference up until now.”

The Will who is not an Old One understands–academia is not known for excellent time management, either.

The woman reverts to her inhuman demeanor, “It was also harder to find you, earlier, without the other four Light ones.”

Will can feel a glare form on his face, mouth tight, brows furrowing, “They’re human.”

“And yet,” the woman says simply. After a beat, she shrugs. “A warning, though this is not what I am here for. For all that they are human, they… emanate Light. I do not know if you Old Ones still have enemies about, but they will be able to find your friends easily enough if you do not give them better protection.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small book which she hands over to him. “A gift, for the holiday, and to foster amity between us.”

He senses power, but nothing Dark, and so he takes it: a book of wards. Nothing like the Book of Gramarye, of course, but useful in its own way.

“The one who opened the door might be able to use it,” the woman suggests as he tucks it away for now.

The idea of putting Jane–or any of his friends–in danger makes him brusque, “What is it that you are here for? You are not of the Dark, nor are you an Old One. What are you?”

This time it is the woman’s turn to furrow her brows, “I was human once, too,” she says, nearly offended. “I don’t know if what I am has a name, but I have been called the Mountain Who Speaks.”

A little bit of destiny rings in the title. Will nods and understands it as truth.

“You are far from your land, Mountain.”

“That is what I am here for,” says the Mountain Who Speaks, “Something will happen in my land years–decades, maybe even centuries–from now.”

Important, but not urgent.

“And you come seeking an alliance,” Will finishes.

“Yes,” agrees the Mountain Who Speaks, “It will not be the grand battle that you had, for in my land there is no Light and Dark, but there will be trouble, and I would appreciate aid in keeping it contained.”

The first part is confusing, but the last is what alarms him, “You foresee it spreading?”

The Mountain’s expression becomes one of unimpressed skepticism, “I Speak,” she says bluntly, “I don’t See.”

It is Will’s turn to be sheepish. “Ah, of course.” Even amongst Old Ones, Sight was not a common power.

After a moment of understanding, the Mountain says, finally, “I will let you return to your party. Again, my apologies for interrupting. This was merely a courtesy call. I will leave you to make your decision, but I hope to speak with you more in the future.”

She unstops Time, the sounds of his friends–safe and happy and completely unaware of the otherworldly, supernatural alliance being brokered in the cramped entryway of Will’s flat.

Will opens the door so she can leave, neither of them flinching at the cold air that hits them. “Safe travels,” he says, not as an Old One but as regular Will Stanton.

“Merry Christmas,” she says back, not as the Mountain Who Speaks, but as the human she once was.

Which reminds him: “What is your name?” he asks belatedly and with no small amount of embarrassment.

The Mountain smiles, “I am Ellen Kaiza.”


End file.
